Settling on Affirmative Action

Published: November 24, 1997

The Piscataway, N.J., school board's decision to settle a lawsuit brought by a white teacher who was dismissed in 1989 to preserve a black teacher's job concludes a case that might have been used to dismantle affirmative-action law in this country. A coalition of civil rights groups made the settlement possible by agreeing to pay 70 percent of the $433,500 judgment that Sharon Taxman won in a lower court for back pay and lawyers' fees.

Supporters of affirmative action thought that the Supreme Court, which was scheduled to hear the case in January, was likely to find the race-based layoff decision improper. They also feared the Court would have gone further and prohibited consideration of racial criteria in employment in general, thus jeopardizing voluntary affirmative-action plans in all workplaces.

Avoiding a Supreme Court ruling, in this situation, was a smart move. The Piscataway case was a difficult one with unusual facts. The teachers, hired the same day, had equal seniority and comparable qualifications. The school district, forced to trim staff for budget reasons, chose to keep the black teacher because she was the only black teacher in her department. The district's goal of maintaining racial diversity was honorable, but its approach was clumsy. The Clinton Administration, which first supported the action, reversed itself this summer.

At some point, the Supreme Court will address whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits considering race in any employment decision, except as a remedy for actual discrimination. The Piscataway case, however, was a poor vehicle for that legal debate.